Actors breaking character. A near lack of production values. Garishly over-the-top gay and Latino stereotypes. Yet, in spite of things that might make a theater purist or an ethnic-studies major chafe, Theatre Out's annual Christmas show, Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart, But the Very Next Day You Said You Were Gay, works. In fact, one could argue it works because of the unpolished veneer and the ridiculously swishy characterizations.
Written by Darcy Hogan, an actor/playwright and a former fixture on the county's storefront scene who escaped this backwater burg for the cosmopolitan sophistication of coastal Oregon, Last Christmas has a very simple plot, but really it's an excuse to parody beloved Christmas standards. Rather than a Weird Al parody, something that deconstructs the original and transforms it into something entirely different, Hogan took the MAD Magazine route, taking portions of existing tunes and tweaking the lyrics.
The plot is an ersatz It's a Wonderful Life, as Christopher (Julian Ronquillo), a flaming-gay elf, is dispatched to human land to try to give the hapless, pining Holly (Alexis Blythe Stansfield) her Christmas wish: a boyfriend. Holly lacks any sense of gaydar but has somehow managed to fall for every gay man in the great state of Nebraska. If Christopher can successfully set her up, he gets his jingle bells—whatever the hell those things do.
Armed with campy passion, Christopher has two assistants for the job: Chico (Michael Gallardo), an equally flamboyant elf who traffics in nearly every Latino stereotype imaginable, from liking Menudo to drooling over horchata, and Judy (Laura DeLano), the handywoman of the crew, who does all the grunt work and tries her hardest to convince Holly that she might be gay.
As Christopher tries to find Holly's high-school sweetheart, math geek Barry (Dustin Thompson), the motley trio of elves sing, dance and school Holly about some of the holiday traditions that have been co-opted by Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and the Tea Party. Santa Claus (played by Glenn Freeze in a late cameo) is a gay Jew. Every Christmas standard was originally a gay-themed song—”A Gay In the Manger,” “Angels We Have Heard Are Bi,” “The 12 Gays of Christmas.” And, most shocking to the sheltered, corn-fed Holly, there are more gay people in Nebraska than she ever could have imagined.
It's all shameless, campy fun, and while this production is a little rough around the edges and actors tend to throw good lines away as often as they nail them, it's still an enjoyable experience—even if it has the feeling of playing to the converted. Director David Carnevale has been involved since its initial production, some seven years ago, when Theatre Out was a gypsy company with no permanent home. What started as an off-color late-night show for OC's only company that bills itself as LGBT is now an established mainstage presence, and it may need some touching up in terms of staging (such as blocking an early vignette so the audience can actually see the actors make their first entrances) to appeal to a wider audience.
The two main selling points are Hogan's clever lyrical changes—a particular favorite is Holly belting out “Frosty the Snowman” as “Find Me a Straight Man/One who's ready to commit/My biological clock/needs a great big cock/Santa, holy fucking shit”—and the cast's game efforts. All have fine voices and move well, and Stansfield's Holly is particularly good at giving her shrinking violet some depth, while DeLano's Judy is equally adept at mining as much funny out of her butch character as possible.
While the emphasis is more on camp than serious social satire, there is still plenty that would offend the stick-up-the-butt crowd from many segments of the body politic. Militant gays may bristle at the oversexed flamboyance of Christopher. Chicanos may take issue with Chico's formulaic stereotype. Hardcore feminists may quibble with Holly feeling less than fulfilled because she's a 30-year-old female without a man in her life. And Christian fundamentalists would choke on the indignation of bisexual angels and cherished Christmas traditions rendered through a gay prism.
But there's one thing that most self-important, self-righteous ideologues have in common: no sense of humor. And when you think about how so much has changed since this show was first produced—from legalized same-sex marriages in 35 states to athletes in major team sports coming out—it's refreshing to see a gay-themed play that isn't as concerned with promoting tolerance and pushing a highly charged political agenda as it is with low-brow raunchy silliness. If history does repeat itself, first as tragedy and then as farce, then maybe the next step is the ability to laugh at the world at large and one's place in it.
Joel Beers has written about theater and other stuff for this infernal rag since its very first issue in, when was that again???